Louis Anslow, Pessimists Archive:
The rise of horseless carriages, mass production and other new forms of automation in the first two decades of the 20th century created anxieties about the future of work and employment. A short and sharp depression in the first year of the new decade helped create unease too.
As in the past, the debate isn’t about wether technology will take jobs, it is about how fast it will take them and how many it will create. It is much easier to imagine someone losing their job to a new technology, than it is to imagine many people gaining jobs that haven’t been invented yet.